Walks on the Quidditch Pitch
by Unregistered-Animagus
Summary: With no one to watch out for him, she watches. With no one to care for him, she cares. How one walk can reveal a great many interesting things. ONE-SHOT


(A/N) The evil plot bunnies attached themselves to my leg, refusing to let go till I wrote something.

This story was revamped and re-edited because PinkyTheSnowman kindly pointed out that I kept switching from past to present tense. So, it's fixed. Besides, the day I posted, fanfiction went screwy and wouldn't post my story on the regular message board. So I'm posting it again.

Disclaimer: Basically everything here is J.K Rowling's, though I like to pretend I own Ron. It's a sad, sad world.

Walks on the Quidditch Pitch

She watches him silently from across the room, eyes narrowed, but in an observant kind of way. His glasses reflect the flickering firelight, but his gaze is downward, like always.

Her fingers clench the armchair, squeezing as hard as she can. Looking down, she realizes her knuckles are white. She lets go, but continues to stare. _Ginny Weasley, stalker, _she thinks to herself. But she refuses to break her gaze. He needs to be watched.

This ritual occurs every single night. She curls up in an armchair and waits for Harry to come back from dinner. He comes shuffling in, followed by Ron and Hermione. The latter two have been spending every waking hour together, ever since the summer when Ginny finally convinced her brother that Hermione was NOT in love with Viktor Krum, and that she'd Bat-Bogey him all the way to Panama if he didn't tell her how he felt.

It worked, by the way. But, as selfish as it might sound, she regrets it now, because she can tell, Harry misses his two best friends. His actions are disturbingly different, and she's the only one who notices. She can fill the gap that she sees inside him.

She's the only one who can.

Ron has Hermione. Remus has Tonks. Even _Neville _has someone, Luna. Harry has no one. He spends his time wandering the halls, alone, flinching at the slightest touch, muttering counter-curses and jinxes under his breath.

It's been like this ever since Sirius died, more than a year ago. He doesn't speak, doesn't eat, and doesn't sleep, unless commanded to. So she watches over him, like a "sister", as he once told her. A sister? She had had trouble not slapping him for that.

So, every night, she watches him, studying his face for any change, the slightest sign that he might be becoming better, coming out of the hard shell that binds him. This night does not seem to be different from any other.

She clenches and relaxes her fist, fingernails digging into her skin, leaving permanent scars on her palm. His eyes, downcast, flicker up. Their eyes meet, if not for a second, then break.

Harry runs a hand through his hair, twirling his wand around his long fingers. He seems restless today. Swinging his legs over the arm of the chair, he walks out of the common room, on legs that seem to move differently than usual.

"Well?" she asks Ron and Hermione. "He's your friend, aren't you going to follow him?"

The answer she receives is an eloquent "Uh?"

"Fine," she mutters. "I'll go find him my self."

"What if he wants to be left alone?" Asks Ron.

"I don't give a damn if he wants to be left alone."

"Well, someone's oddly pushy today."

"Shut up, Ron."

"Fine, but don't blame me when he bites your head off with his angst."

Ginny ignores him, hoists herself off the chair, and scrambles out of the portrait hole.

He's gone.

Swearing loudly, causing a few portraits to reprimand her, she sets off down the hall, footsteps echoing down the hallway. She glances at the clock. It's nine o'clock. _Find him_, she commands herself.

She tries the Astronomy Tower. Better start at the top and work her way down, she figures. No luck. The only thing there is a bunch of snogging couples. What exactly is so romantic about the Astronomy tower, she doesn't know.

Various other classrooms turn up the same result: nothing, minus a few disgruntled teachers.

Eyeing the double doors to the entrance of the castle, she realizes. _The Quidditch pitch. Well, duh. _She rarely uses that word, but now seems an appropriate time to use that expression.

She feels the wet grass slip under her feet. The ground is spongy, but firm. _Good Quidditch conditions, _she thinks to herself, knowing Harry is probably thinking the same thing.

Her gaze travels upward, scanning the sky for him. She finds nothing, again.

"Ginny?"

She whirls around.

"Harry!" Well, there he was. Now what?

"What are you doing here?"

Honesty is the best policy, she decides, "Looking for you."

He looks slightly chagrined. "Me?"

"It would appear so, wouldn't it?"

"Why?"

"I was worried about you." He stares at her, apparently confused. "There's nothing to worry about." _Oh lord. Is he _that_ stupid? _"Yes there is, Harry, and you know it."

His expression turns indignant, defiant, "I have no idea what you're talking about, Ginny." Now it's her turn to get mad. "You do. Look at you."

He looks down, at himself. "It's a little hard to look without a mirror," Apparently this is his idea of a joke. She, however, finds nothing funny about the situation.

"Well…ever since…Sirius…you – you're different."

Harry snorts, his gaze hardening. "Well, obviously, I mean, having one's godfather die is somewhat of a life-changing event."

She can't argue with that, but "Would he want you to be like this?"

"I – well, no, well, I mean –"

"That's what I thought."

"Ginny, you don't get it. You don't get how much his death killed me. How much the prophecy killed me. I have to murder or be murdered. I don't think Sirius would want me to be a killer, either,"

"Voldemort's death could save the lives of millions of others, you know. Sirius _would _have wanted that."

Harry digs his foot into the soft ground of the pitch. In the moonlight, only half of his face is visible, and that half, as Ginny can see, was crying. Damn. She hadn't meant to make him cry. She looks away as he wipes furiously at his face.

"I didn't see that." She says.

"Right." He nods, somewhat gratefully.

"Harry…you don't have to keep everything to yourself, you know." She tries to lighten the mood of this rather awkward situation.

"Yes I do, I'm the Boy-Who-Lived."

"Right now you're acting like the Selfish-Idiot-Who-Is-About-To-Get-His-Arse-Hexed." 

The faint glimmer of a smile chases across his face. "Well, thanks. Any other faults you'd like to reveal about me?"

"Do you really want to get me started?"

"I think you already _have_ started, so by all means, continue." She nods, and then said, "Well, for starters, you flinch whenever someone touches you."

"Try me, why don't you?"

Eyebrows raised, she puts a hand on his shoulder. He shudders so badly that it knocks her hand off. "See?"

"All right, you got one."

"Uhh…you refuse to try at Potions." He shakes his head. "That's because I'm terrible at it."

"You still refer to Cho Chang as 'that ugly scarlet woman'"

"It's completely accurate!"

"It's completely degrading. How would _you _like to be called a scarlet woman?"

Harry stares at her, more confused than ever. "Why would anyone call me a scarlet woman? Do I look like one?" She rolls her eyes. "Never mind,"

"Anymore faults you'd care to point out?"

"Yes, actually." Ginny says, putting on a mock serious face. "Your scar is off center."

He puts a hand on his chest and staggers backward. "No! It can't be!" He laughed.

"Was that a laugh? From Harry Potter? Teen angst extraordinaire?"

"Seriously though, Ginny. My flaws. What are they?"

"Most people aren't generally that eager to hear someone reveal every single bad thing about them."

"I'm different, then. I want to know. Please." Ginny cocks her head to the side. "Why?"

"I'm not sure why. But please, Gin. Tell me."

She grinds her foot into the ground, making patterns in the soft dirt. "Well. Alright. I hate it that you're selfish and rude and inconsiderate to all of us, and you don't seem to know that you hurt every single one of us by closing up and not talking, because, Harry, we want to help. And you don't seem to get that."

Harry face has frozen, staring at her. "Oh."

"Well, if that's all you can say, then I'll just-"

"Wait."

She puts her hands on her hips and glares. "For what? For you to yell at me, and tell me that you've got the weight of saving the world on my shoulders so I'd better sod off? Because you've already said that."

"And I remember correctly, you exploded Neville's Stinksap plant at me for that. But I wasn't going to say that this time."

"Oh yeah?"

"I was going to apologize. I don't mean to be like that. But…Ginny, really. It's hard."

"Not meaning to sound clichéd, but that's what friends are for."

"Just friends?"

"Or 'almost sisters', to quote yourself."

He looks down, sheepishly. "Oh yeah…that. Sorry."

"For what?"

Now he looks even more embarrassed. Harry had gone through a grand total of 5 emotions in the last ten minutes: shocked, defiant, indignant, sad, and embarrassed. He, unlike Ron, did not seem to have a teaspoon-like emotion range.

"Well…you're not really like a sister to me…or a friend…you're – more than that."

That certainly wasn't the response she'd expected. "Really?"

"Yeah."

And this was coming from the boy who said "wangoballwime" to Cho Chang. People change, she supposed. "Oh…well…me too."

For the first time in what seems like centuries, he smiles. And, for the first time, but not the last, she hopes, he hugs her. She smiles back and they head off toward the castle, both smiling not-so-secret smiles.

Their elbows knock together and Ginny finds herself holding his hand. She squeezes it.

This time, he doesn't flinch.

The End

A/N: What, no end-of-story kiss? Aww. No, not yet. It'll come, in their imagined future. But it's still a one-shot. Oh lord…I'm not sure how much I like this one. It's awkward to write in the present tense. Past is so much easier. Anyways, the plot bunny let go of my leg and I'm free to go. You, however, are not, until you review. Please?

Anyways, my sort-of beta Pallavi wasn't online today while I wrote this so…it's un-beta'd.


End file.
